Fox's Bolling Sticks Up For UPS And FedEx Over Their Botched Christmas Deliveries

On yesterday’s Your World, Eric Bolling debated Democratic strategist Steve Murphy about Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wanting UPS and FedEx to refund all customers for delayed packages. Bolling wondered why Blumenthal got involved. “Why in the world do we want more government intrusion into the free market? It seems to be working just fine.”

Murphy did a great job of arguing against Bolling’s talking points. Murphy said, “First of all, it’s not working just fine. You just had a story about how it hasn’t worked, and there’s no free market when it comes to shipping across the country. You’ve got two big carriers, a wink and a nod. They all do the same thing all the time. Look in this case, the invisible hand has got us all by the you-know-what."

Bolling sneered, “You’re babbling. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Look, they made a mistake. They refunded some of the customers' money, and the stocks certainly wasn’t affected by it, everyone seems to be OK a couple of days after.”

Murphy shot back, “The stock has nothing to do with the customers and the consumers who had their Christmases ruined. You’re taking the side of the Grinch here. You know absolutely what I’m talking about. I’m not babbling, you’re just disagreeing with what I’m saying. …You’re an expert on the Constitution. The Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate Commerce, and this is Congress’ job to do so, and Richard Blumenthal is only doing what he was elected to do, which is stand up for his constituents.”

Bolling said, “They didn’t lie, they said they were going to try and get the packages there, clearly they would rather have had those packages there. However, however, but they did the right thing. …They said, 'We’re refunding the customers money.'” Then, he took a shot at one of Fox’s favorite targets, the U.S. Postal Service. “By the way, you know what they alternative is? You can go to the US Postal Service, do you think it could be there on time if they did that?”

“Yes I do,” Murphy said. “The US Postal Service can handle the volume. You know their volume has dropped way off. What these companies did was take on more work than they could handle, and they lied about it. And they should be held accountable.”

So Bolling changed his line of attack again. “That’s like the third Senator that took to the podium that started attacking the free market in the last couple of days. It’s absolutely ridiculous,” he said.

But Murphy gave as good as he got, “So you’re a proponent of the free market, but you’re an opponent of free speech,” he replied.

Bolling then turned to his “the free market will solve it” argument. “Knock yourself out, Senator Menendez and Senator Blumenthal. Use any opportunity you can to kind of promote your little agenda going on, but the reality is, in all these cases, the free market takes care of it and it fixes itself. …Your 5 year old doesn’t get the ball that he ordered from Amazon? Next year, you’re not going to do it the same way. You’re either going to order earlier or you’re going to have it sent another way.”

But Murphy caught what Bolling was really getting at. “Ohhh, it’s the customers fault,” Murphy said sarcastically. “They should be held accountable.”

Bolling argued, “They can go to DHL, they can go to another carrier. …Go find another service. …If they’re not holding up their end of the bargain, someone else will come in, that’s competition.”

“Who? Who? Who’s going to cover the country like those two companies do?” Murphy demanded.

“I’ll bet you there’s 20 shippers that would love to have the business that UPS and FedEx have,” Bolling said. He chuckled in mocking laughter as the segment closed.

But what Bolling overlooked is that customers rarely have a choice in determining which carrier is going to deliver goods they order. It’s up to the vender to decide who will do the shipping. So in Bolling’s free market utopia, the purchaser gets little to no say in who delivers their packages.